Amid an ongoing war of words between prominent Iraqi political factions over the forced displacement of members of the minority Christian population in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, Kurdish MP Mahmoud Othman has claimed that militias loyal to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki are behind the violence against Christians in the northern Iraqi city.

Thousands of Iraqi Christians fled the city of Mosul last fall after a wave of violence that targeted their community.

However, as INA reports, a Kurdish MP has lashed back, with Mahmoud Othman choosing to point the blame at the ruling party in Iraqi government, which has little support in the predominantly Sunni Arab and Kurdish city of Mosul.

"Kurds welcome any investigation into the question of the forced displacement and killing of Christians in Mosul," Othman said, adding that The Kurdistan Coalition "supports any investigation (into the forced displacement and killing) to clarify to all the party lying behind" the acts of violence.

The Iraqi government has formed a committee but it’s disappointing that the government did not publish the results of the investigations and I don’t know the reason for the government’s holding an investigation and not publishing its results,
As IraqSlogger reported earlier, the results of a government investigation into the anti-Christian displacement in Mosul were not released.

The reason for the non-disclosure of the results of the investigation is the involvement of militias loyal to Nuri al-Maliki in the forced displacement operations in Mosul
Othma denied that Kurds have any hand in the forced displacement, saying that the evidence of that is the Christians who have fled Mosul for the autonomous Kurdistan region and taken up residence there.

A source in PM al-Maliki’s Da'wa Party dismissed Othman’s remarks, saying provocatively that the Kurds, more than others, know who lies behind these crimes.